• chiliedogg@lemmy.worldEnglish
    161·
    21 hours ago

    In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017 and the clusterfuck of a governmental response, the only thing Trump supporters and I agreed on was that the responsibility fell on the President of Perto Rico, who was an unqualified fuck-up.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      20 hours ago

      I have zero clue who the Puerto Rican president was in 2017. But as an American territory, why wouldn’t America have some responsibility? Even if it’s just sending aid money to hire contracted help.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        7 hours ago

        For people unaware, the inhabited US territories except for American Samoa are like states, except the federal government has more power to override their decisions and they don’t get a say in the federal government. They still have the same federal government, and I believe they have non voting legislators who are able to speak on their behalf but can’t vote (as does DC)

        However their people are full US citizens, just as much as those born in the 50 states. This means that if I, a white English speaker from the contiguous 48, were to move to Puerto Rico I’d be more than permitted, but would lose my say in the federal government until I moved back. The inverse is also true and Puerto Ricans who move to a state get to vote in federal elections.

        All that said, Puerto Rico should be given the option for statehood or independence. They’re more populous than several states (the problem with the pacific territories is they’re each tiny and some states we have don’t have the population to justify the same number of senators as California).

      • abrake@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        20 hours ago

        Whoosh

        Title

        Donald Trump was the president of Puerto Rico in 2017, since it is an American territory. Some people in MAGA didn’t realize this. OP was playing on this fact to say that Donald Trump was a fuck up.